Standard-setting organization
Definitions A standard-setting organization (also called a standards-setting organization, standards organization, and SSO) is Overview Most voluntary standards are offered for use by people, regulators, or industry. When a published standard achieves widespread acceptance and dominance it can become a broader de facto standard for an industry. This has happened with the modem protocol developed by Hayes, Apple's TrueType font standard and the PCL protocol used by Hewlett-Packard in the computer printers they produced. Normally, the term standards organization does not include the parties participating in the standards development organization in the capacity of founders, benefactors, stakeholders, members or contributors, who themselves may function as the standard-setting organizations. Specific standards-setting bodies Standards are set through bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Internet Architecture Board, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the former Comite Consultatif Internationale de Telegraphique et Telephonique (CCITT), the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the American Bankers Association (ABA), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the Department of Commerce has a prominent role to work with these standards-setting bodies and also to develop Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) for use by the federal government and its contractors. U.S. antitrust law Private standard setting — which might otherwise be viewed as a naked agreement among competitors not to manufacture, distribute, or purchase certain types of products — need not, in fact, violate antitrust law.See Allied Tube & Conduit Corp. v. Indian Head, Inc., 486 U.S. 492, 500-01 (1988) (full-text); see also Standards Development Organization Advancement Act of 2004, 15 U.S.C. §§ 4302, 4303 (Supp. 2004) (providing that private standard-setting conduct shall not be deemed illegal per se, and insulating such conduct from treble damages); Pub. L. No. 108-237, Title I, §102, 118 Stat. 661 (June 22, 2004) (noting congressional finding of "the importance of technical standards developed by voluntary consensus standards bodies to our national economy"). Typically, the procompetitive benefits of standard setting outweigh the loss of market competition. For this reason, antitrust enforcement has shown a high degree of acceptance of, and tolerance for, standard-setting activities. But when a firm engages in exclusionary conduct that subverts the standard-setting process and leads to the acquisition of monopoly power, the procompetitive benefits of standard setting cannot be fully realized. Indeed, that "private standard-setting by associations comprising firms with horizontal and vertical business relations is permitted at all under the antitrust laws is only on the understanding that it will be conducted in a nonpartisan manner offering procompetitive benefits,"Allied Tube, 486 U.S. at 506-07. and in the presence of "meaningful safeguards" that "prevent the standard-setting process from being biased by members with economic interests in stifling product competition,"id. at 501; American Soc'y of Mech. Eng'rs, Inc. v. Hydrolevel Corp., 456 U.S. 556, 572 (1982) (full-text); see also Clamp-All Corp. v. Cast Iron Soil Pipe Inst., 851 F.2d 478, 488 (1st Cir. 1988) (full-text) (acknowledging possibility of antitrust claim where firms both prevented SSO from adopting a beneficial standard and did so through “unfair, or improper practices or procedures”). As the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged in Allied Tube, and as administrative tribunals, law enforcement authorities, and some courts have recognized, conduct that undermines the procompetitive benefits of private standard setting may, at least in some circumstances, be deemed anticompetitive under antitrust law.) References See also * De facto standard * De jure standard * Standard * Standardization * Standards developing organization * Voluntary standard Category:Technology Category:Organization Category:Standards